Hometown inspired local writer

BY MELISSA MCKEON MMCKEON@HOLDENLANDMARK.COM

Thursday

Oct 7, 2010 at 12:01 AM

Holden native Alicia Bessette gave a packed house last Thursday at the Gale Free Library, the Cinderella story of her journey from "uncool" professional to the life she and husband novelist Matthew Quick had always wanted.

"We started to feel uncool because we weren’t doing with our lives what we wanted to do, which was write books," Bessette recalled of that period now nearly seven years in the past when the two made the break.

Their next step, she recalls, made them feel even more "uncool" — they sold their home near Philadelphia, left their jobs and moved into her parent’s basement in Holden.

But that uncool move had some benefits: Bessette went to work for The Landmark and unwittingly gathered inspiration, while Quick worked on an MFA in creative writing and wrote the book that would help set them on the path they wanted to follow.

Bessette recalled her tenure at The Landmark and the period just after hurricane Katrina, when staffers were busy with stories from all over the Wachusett Region of victims of the tragedy and folks involved in relief efforts. The latter set Bessette’s imagination alight — what would happen, she wondered, if one of these folks who went down to help, didn’t come home?

Find out what Bessette thinks would happen by reading her own debut novel, "Simply from Scratch," published in August.

Bessette read from her novel at the GFL and the passage she chose was emblematic of her long homage to the place where she grew up. The novel contains a trip down Main Street, local characters folks may recognize, a pizza parlor they definitely will identify and a whiff of what is surely Bessette’s own nostalgia for New England weather.

There’s also a dog inspired by Bessette’s own greyhound, some recipes, a cooking contest and a visit from the fire department.

Two’s a charm

Though "Simply from Scratch" (originally "All Come Home") is Bessette’s debut in the published world, it’s not her first novel. Her first novel was rejected "up, down and sideways," she recalls.

She also recalls giving way to some natural discouragement after so much rejection.

"I got it in my head that I was done for, Matt would be the writer, I should find something else to do," she says. She was fit, she believed, for nothing else.

"I quickly figured out [in elementary school] that I wasn’t good at math or science or art or anything else except writing," she recalls.

She took up the proverbial pen again.

Though Bessette had envisioned herself as a writer of fantasy, inspiration of a different sort from her Landmark days visited to inspire "Simply from Scratch," which was the winner. The road to publication for that novel, however, was still grueling. The most difficult part, she says, was getting a literary agent.

It’s been a worthwhile road. The book, just out a few months, has been sold in other countries and is a best seller in Germany.

And if the crowd at her reading is any indication, it’s probably a best seller in Holden, Mass. as well.

"Simply from Scratch," was published by Dutton in August. It is available online and in book stores for $25.95, hard cover.